


Moss and Herringbone

by gooseberry



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Brothers, Dwarves, Gen, Knitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a Hobbit Kink Meme prompt: "I want to expand my Dwalin-is-dyslexic headcanon to more Dwarves with disorders.</p><p>Dori is actually so fussy that in a modern world, he'd be diagnosed with having OCD. At some point it was impossible to even get him out of the house, and he had to go cold turkey on knitting when he kept knitting and counting and unraveling and knitting and counting and unraveling the same material again ad again for hours.</p><p>He's been okay for years, but because of the stress of the quest he has a relapse."</p><p>When Dori (quietly) panics, Nori does his best to comfort him. It's all Brothers Ri and knitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moss and Herringbone

He picks up wool in Bree. The color is beautifully delicate, a faded green that looks like winter sage; too light to be somber, but dull enough to be understated and quiet. The wool is soft and squishy, loosely spun, and it is utterly lovely--perfect for a cowl or a scarf. He complains about the color, about the loose spinning, and eventually cuts the cost for the yarn nearly in half. When he leaves the shop, with four hanks of the yarn and a pair of wooden needles, he is feeling proud of himself--maybe a little ridiculously so, but he’s found a treasure today.

He tucks the yarn into the bottom of his pack, beneath the extra oilcloth. He’s not sure what he’ll make yet, and he thinks about it for days. A cowl would be best. The yarn is too loosely spun for cabling, but perhaps a moss stitch--something to add cushion to the texture. When he opens his pack, he touches the yarn sometimes, rubbing the yarn between his finger and thumb to feel the softness of the fibers. A moss stitch, he thinks--or perhaps a twisted rib stitch, to give the cowl a little more stretch.

Whatever he wants to do, though, has to wait. After Bree, the company is stuck spending each night in the wilderness, and everything becomes covered in dirty and twigs and sweat and--Mahal help him--blood. He settles for daydreaming about the yarn, and what he might make with it, and, on the rare occasions his hands are actually clean, pulling the yarn close enough to the opening of his bag so he can see the faded greens.

When the company ends up in Rivendell, where there is food and safety and, most importantly, actual tubs for bathing, Dori seizes upon his chance.

“Hands up,” he tells Ori, and Ori does so obediently, holding up his hands. Dori untwists one of the hanks of yarn, then settles himself in front of Ori. 

It’s nice, to sit with his brother, winding balls of yarn. Ori doesn’t even complain, even when Dori pulls out the second hank of yarn, and then the third and fourth. Dori can _feel_ himself begin to smile, a wide, foolish-feeling smile, and he barely tries to stifle it.

“What’ll you make?” Ori asks, and Dori says,

“Not sure yet. A cowl, maybe, or a hood.”

“It’s a lovely color,” Ori says when Dori is winding the last ball, and Dori can’t help but beam at Ori, and say,

“It is, isn’t it?”

x

Somehow, despite all reason, the yarn survives the tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. Nori had grabbed a bag when they’d been dumped into Goblin Town--probably his thieving instincts rearing their arguably ugly head--and there, on the top of the carrock, Nori looks at the bag, then shoves it into Dori’s hand.

“Yours, I guess,” Nori says, and Dori takes the bag, slinging it over his shoulder. It won’t be of much help--oilcloth, jars of grease, scraps of metal and wire, and his yarn. Still, it is nice to have something of his own--to have something saved, after the mountains--

The next day, at Beorn’s hall, Dori opens his bag, digging through it until he finds the balls of yarn and the pair of needles. He clears his throat, then pulls an end free from one of the balls of yarn. Fifty--fifty would be a good number to cast on. An even number, and with the thickness of the yarn, it would be a good width.

Thirty-nine, forty--he stops and pushes the stitches down the needle, then begins to count. He’s not sure how many he’s counted on--forty-one, forty-two. 

He pushes the stitches off the needle, then tears them out. Looser--he’ll cast on looser, that would be better. A loosely knit cowl, so it would drape better.

He casts on--twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty--then tears out the stitches again. Casts on again, and tears it all out, and looks at the yarn in dismay. The last yard or so of the yarn is losing its twist, the fibers beginning to fray out, and a feeling of frustration punches through his gut. He yanks another yard free from the ball of yarn, then begins to cast on again.

Casts on, and tears it out, and feels his palms begin to sweat. The wool catches on his fingers, dragging against the underside of his knuckles. He tries to dry his palms on his trousers, but now he can feel the wool sticking to his skin, and he wants to scream or to punch something. 

“Dori--”

It’s Nori. Dori scrapes his palms against his trousers again, then curls his hands over the ball of yarn in his lap. His skin is beginning to feel tender, and he looks at the yarn, and at his hands.

“What’re you making?” Nori asks, and when he sits down next to Dori, Dori closes his eyes and counts to twenty.

“A cowl,” he says, when he’s counted to twenty twice. He still feels frustrated, but now his nerves are beginning to rise, and he can’t help but rub his thumbs against the knuckles of his ring fingers. “I thought--” He clears his throat, then finishes, “It’ll be cold soon.

“Yeah,” Nori says, and then Nori is plucking the ball of yarn from Dori’s lap. Dori watches him turn the ball over in his hands, and then tug at the yards of yarn that Dori had pulled free. Nori inspects the yarn closely, then says, “It’s spun loosely. It’ll be good for a cowl.”

Dori nods, then says, feeling angry and bitter and impotent and sick to his stomach, “I kept losing count.”

“Casting on?” Nori asks, and before Dori can say anything, Nori is grabbing the knitting needles, too. Nori’s fingers are quick, and he casts on with quick twists of his wrists, wrapping the needle over and around, over and around. “How many?” Nori asks, as he casts on, and Dori stammers,

“I thought fifty--it’ll be wide, but if it’s loose enough--”

“Right,” Nori says, and he casts on a few more stitches, then stops, dragging the tip of a finger over the stitches as he counts them under his breath. “Forty-six--seven, eight, nine, fifty.”

“Again,” Dori says, “count them again.”

Nori does; he leans closer to Dori, until he’s nearly in Dori’s lap, and he pushes the stitches down the needle, away from the tip. Then he separates the stitches in groups of five, and counts, “Five, ten, fifteen--”

Dori follows Nori’s thumb as it separates the stitches, and when Nori says, “Fifty,” Dori says,

“Once more.”

Nori hesitates, starting to pull away, and Dori says, feeling wretched, “ _Please--_ ”

Nori counts the stitches and then, as Dori watches, turns the needle. “Pattern?”

“Moss stitch,” Dori says, “or herringbone.”

Nori hums, then slips the right needles through two stitches. He’s chosen the herringbone, then. Dori watches him as he knits, one row, then another. After the fifth row, Nori tugs at the fabric, pulling the stitches straight. The loose twist of the yarn has left the angles of the pattern muted, and Dori reaches out to touch the bit of cowl, to run his thumb along a row of stitches. 

“You want it now?” Nori asks.

Dori leans back and says, “I’ll tear it all out again.”

Nori says nothing to that. He begins knitting again, row after row, and when Dori says, “No--count the stitches,” Nori counts them.

“Moss might’ve been softer,” Nori says after a while, when he’s purling across the wrong side. “Would’ve been a nice texture.”

“You like herringbone better,” Dori replies. His chest feels tight and his tongue thick, and he wants to tear the knitting from Nori’s hands, so he can count the stitches himself; so he can tear it all out, and do it again properly. He’s tucked his hands beneath his legs, though--resting all his weight on his hands, so they go cold and numb.

Nori sounds utterly delighted when he asks, “It’s for me, then? Might actually wear this one.”

Nori knits, and purls, and counts the stitches as he goes along, each one; he knits aloud, murmuring, “Two and slide, two and slide--that’s two stitches, Dori--two and slide.”

Dori clenches his hands into fists, and it feels like pieces of ice are poking through his skin. He grimaces, then reaches out, taking the knitting from Nori. His fingers fumble as he slides the stitches off the needle.

“I nearly lost Ori,” Dori says, and when Nori says,

“I know,”

Dori tears out the knitting, and begins to cast on again.


End file.
